Monday, July 14, 2014

Status
Quo: Senior
Congressional Republicans refused to even consider Obama's request
for additional funds for the problems on our southern border. After
all, things are working quite nicely from their point of view and
they are certainly not going to help ameliorate the problem. And
that's a big part of the problem. Indian
Givers: A
student in California discovered a “strange device” on his car
when he took it in for an oil change. Pictures posted on the web
identified it as an FBI tracking device. Now the FBI is demanding
their property back.

Messenger,
Shooting The:
Australia's Agriculture Minister says that the animal rights group
that put footage on line that showed sheep being beaten with hammers,
thrown against walls, having their necks stamped on and having wounds
sewn up with no aesthetic are a bunch of 'extremists' who use
questionable practices. How
Dare You! The
US upset with Germany for kvetching about the CIA's spying on them, Bill
Of Particulars:
The NSA spies on politicians, generals, judges, lawyers, citizens
and nearly
everyone else. For example, they began collecting information on
Barak Obama when he first ran for public office and continued to do
so through his run for the Presidency. And there is no
reason to suspect they have stopped. It is also naïve to
believe that this is merely harmless collection, that those who hold
the information do not use it for their benefit. And the NSA passes
data on American citizens, including
members of Congress to Israel. It seems likely that the NSA is
blackmailing
its putative Washington overseers. There is no record in history
when such surveillance was not used to control the people, but there
is always a first time. Rotten
Apples: Pope
Francis says that only 2% of Catholic clergy are pedophiles. That's
only about 8,000 of 'em. He finds “this
state of affairs intolerable." No
steps to reduce or abolish this criminal behavior have been
announced.

As
Expected: The
pedophile scandal in Great Britain is now washing up against the
Sainted Maggie Thatcher's regime, with multiple accusations that she
of knowingly suppressed information about cabinet
level involvement. Contestants:
If Monsanto is only
the third most-hated
company, who's in first place?
BP, Bank America? Nearer
My God To Thee:
Lord Carey, the former archbishop of Canterbury, and Desmond Tutu,
one of the world's most eminent religious figures, have lent their
support to a campaign to legalize the right to die, claiming that
assisted suicide as a way of preventing pointless suffering is
“not-anti-Christian”.

Does
Not End Well:
France told Amazon that
its free delivery was not legal. So Amazon instituted a one-cent
charge. The French are not going to be amused. Fine
Point: It is
not the universal surveillance that is so damning – much, if not
most, of the 'surveillance' is simply watching what goes on in public
spaces (depending on the definition, of course). The compromising
part is not the gathering of our behavior, but the subtle and
imaginative analyses and correlation of that raw data that computers
make possible. We are judged by our actions. “It is not the
basic information often that matters, it is the analysis and the
quality of it.” We are condemned by our actions, by the very
visible details of living.

Making
a Point:The
UN claims that 3 out of
4 people killed by the IDF in Gaza have been civilians, many of them
women and children. Israel wants to know what all the fuss is.

A
Sense Of proportion:
A teenager
has been sentenced to 23 years in prison for killing a police dog.
The retired Florida cop who killed a man for
using a cell phone in a movie theatre is out on bail. And no one
in charge of any of the big fine-paying banks has gone to jail for
massive fraud that destroyed the economy.

Our Motto

Keep fightin' for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don't you forget to have fun doin' it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin' ass and celebratin' the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.